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Gallup Poll: 44 Percent Of Americans Want Bush Back
 December 15, 2009 "Air America" -- December 10, 2009 -- A new Gallup poll released today found that President Obama’s approval rating continues to dip. But the poll also uncovered a much more disturbing fact: 44 percent of Americans would be happier with George W. Bush back in the White House. My, how quickly we forget. If the phrase “George W. Bush back in the White House” doesn’t make your blood run cold, it should. It seems an exercise in masochism to devote an entire article to rehashing the embarrassingly catastrophic nightmare that was the Bush Presidency just to remind our readers what life was like only a short year ago. So, if you are one of the 44 percent who may be thinking to yourself right now “that Bush guy wasn’t too bad, at least I had a job,” consider the opinions of those who are paid to study presidents: historians. Over a year ago, History News Network conducted a poll of 109 professional historians, asking them to rank the presidents of the United States. A full 61 percent found Bush to be the worst president of all time. That list includes other presidential stand-outs like: William Henry Harrison, who spent most his 31 days in office sick with pneumonia; Richard Nixon, impeached for using the FBI for political espionage; Herbert Hoover, who stood by as the Great Depression destroyed the country; and Warren G. Harding, who kind of sealed his fate with this remark "I am not fit for this office and should never have been here." And that's not to mention the litany of other pro-slavery presidents who were on the wrong side of history. Yet the vast majority of historians found George W. Bush to be worse than even these duds. Over time, after the sting of two endless wars, the willful disregard for science, the erosion of Americans' civil liberties and the disgrace of torture wears off, Bush will probably take his rightful place in history as the 6th or 7th biggest presidential disaster ever. But it is exactly this sting that we should suck up just a little bit longer--until, say, December of 2012. And if we don’t? Well, there is another, more feminine version of Bush just waiting to take advantage of a forgetful and historically ignorant public. She’s already amassing a huge following. Need a hint? Maybe the British newspaper The Daily Mirror had it right when, after Bush was reelected in 2004, it asked its readers, “…Can 59,054,087 People Be So DUMB?” Yes, we can.
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